At the late meeting of the British Association, there was some profitable discussion on work, wages, and thrift. One speaker emphatically pointed out that unthrift was more concerned in producing poverty in families than a deficiency in wages. He said, that where there was a deficiency of food 'it would mostly be found that what was wanted had been consumed in drink.' Adding, 'As a matter of fact, the large families did the best, and the greatest men in science and as statesmen were mostly members of large families and younger sons upon whom early struggles for mental growth had produced brilliant results.' This corresponds with ordinary experience. Within our own knowledge, the greater number of persons distinguished in literature, the arts, and in commerce have been the sons of parents whose means of bringing up their families did not exceed a hundred, in some instances not eighty, pounds a year. Yet upon these slender resources, through the effects of thrift--as, for example, the case given by the late Sir William Fairbairn--families of six or seven children were respectably reared, and attained prominent places in society. In almost every large town is observed a painful but curious contrast in the administration of earnings. On one side are seen the families of small tradesmen making a manful struggle to keep up respectable appearances at a free revenue of not more than a hundred a year; while alongside of them are families earning two pounds a week and upwards, who make no effort at respectability, and are constantly in difficulties. The explanation simply lies in thrift and unthrift. In one case there are aspirations and enlightened foresight; in the other there is a total indifference to consequences. A few weeks ago, the Rev. F. O. Morris, of Nunburnholme Rectory, Hayton, York, communicated to the _Times_ some remarkable revelations concerning unthrift. 'A gentleman of my acquaintance,' he says, 'living in a midland manufacturing town, gave me, two or three years ago, the following instances of the unthriftness, or rather the outrageous extravagance, of the artisans there; such cases being quite common, the exceptions only the other way. I must premise that many of them with families were at that time earning from eight to twelve pounds a week; a single man as much as five pounds a week, and yet, though paid on Saturday evenings, they would come on the following Monday night to ask the manager for an advance of the next week's wages. And this not for any legitimate expenditure, for even those who had families lived generally in one room, kept no servant, and only employed charwomen. Nevertheless, well they might be in want of ready-money, for often you would see a party setting out on a Sunday for an excursion to some place or other in a carriage with four horses, and dressed in the most extravagant manner, but at the same time with much taste, owing no doubt to their employment being in the lace-trade.